


a moment of truth

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aside from "this is not it", Avengers Family, Civil War Fix-It, Communication, Depressed Steve Rogers, Developing Friendships, Endgame Fix-It, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Mcu fix-it, No Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Not Canon Compliant, POV Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has Issues, Truth Serum, Universe Alteration, infinity war fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Steve’s never admitted to being anything other than, “Fine, Tony, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” no matter how tired and stiff his smile is. And it’s obvious he’s not fine, he lost everything and everyone, and nobody’s going to handle that spectacularly, but this’s a whole ‘nother level of not fine.





	a moment of truth

**Author's Note:**

> I finally revised this! Seems appropriate given the latest developments. :P

“You okay?” Tony asks, giving Steve a once over. Something about his posture is pinging Tony’s radar.

It’s been a hell of a day.

Steve had been out for a run when he’d been ambushed. They haven’t exactly figured out the whole long-term teamwork thing, but Tony had given everyone a phone and Steve had used his to alert JARVIS when he needed the help, so they’ve got that going for them at least.

Steve had, of course, managed to hold his own—at least until one of the ten thugs had smashed him over the head. That was the scene Tony’d joined: Steve on his knees with his arms wrenched up behind him, blood in his hair, surrounded by ten men in black tactical gear with no identifying marks. One of them had a thin plastic tube jabbed into Steve’s neck.

“Bad, _bad_ idea,” Tony chided, hovering overhead. “Hands off Cap. Now.”

“This is none of your business Iron Man.”

“Wrong. Try again. I suggest, ‘We surrender.’”

Looks were exchanged, and before Tony even knew what the hell was happening, foam was bubbling up out of the mouths of the thugs, and they’d started dropping like flies.

He darted in, grabbing hold of Steve and pulling him out of the twitching heap of men. He was torn between watching them, horror-struck, and making sure Steve was okay.

Steve looked nearly as shaken as Tony felt. He stared at the pile of now-corpses like he’d seen a ghost.

“You okay?” Tony demanded. “Steve?”

“Yeah,” he’d replied, dazed. “Fine. I’m—Glad you showed up.”

“Glad you called. Come on. JARVIS is sending S.H.I.E.L.D. to clean this up. Let’s go home.”

For a moment, the melancholy on Steve’s face had overshadowed everything else. Then it had cleared away, and he’d nodded. “Let’s.”

Now, Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up like a rooster’s feathers. “Yeah, sure, just one of those days I wish they’d left me in the ice.”

Tony’s hand freezes halfway to the undersuit lying draped over the locker room bench. He turns to look at Steve’s face, to confirm what his ears are telling him.

Steve is looking back at him like he’s just heard his own words, horror stealing over his face in slow motion.

“I don’t— I mean that’s not—”

“How often do you have these days?” Tony hears himself asking and what the hell, he’s not qualified for this if—

“Every one,” Steve says, and his face goes bone white.

Tony’s too shocked to do more than stare when Steve turns tail and runs.

~ * ~

Tony hasn’t been able to settle since Steve…over-shared.

He tried burying himself in working on the suit, but what Steve said won’t stop niggling at him, there in the back of his mind.

Tony knows what that’s like, to wish you weren’t—whatever.

Steve’s never admitted to being anything other than, “Fine, Tony, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” no matter how tired and stiff his smile is. And it’s obvious he’s not fine, he lost everything and everyone, and nobody’s going to handle that spectacularly, but this’s a whole ‘nother level of not fine.

Tony starts when he feels fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Wow, that’s out of it even for you,” Pepper says and switches off the welding torch he’s holding with the other hand, still scratching gently at his neck.

“Hey,” Tony protests feebly.

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?”

Tony looks up at her, and her face is soft and patient and how’s he supposed to ignore that? “I think Cap’s in a bad way.”

Pepper frowns. “How so?”

“He said to me today he wishes most days they hadn’t pulled him out of the ice.”

Pepper’s eyes go round. “Oh.” She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “Tony, you have to talk to him.”

Tony stares at her. “Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea, I get choked up if anyone so much as mentions wormholes—” he even stutters over the word but Pepper’s hands are warm on his neck, and he keeps it together— “and you think I’m qualified to handle his issues?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. It’s weird how reassuring her eye-rolls are. “I’m not saying you should become his therapist. But you know how hard it is to admit you aren’t okay. He probably doesn’t even feel like there’s anyone he can admit it to.”

Even if he hadn’t been able to put it into words, Tony had had Pepper and Rhodey. Steve has the Avengers, but he’s always holding himself a little apart.

“Shit.”

Pepper strokes his hair. “Don’t try to fix him, Tony. He’s not a machine. He just needs a friend.”

“Historically not one of my strong suits.”

Pepper smiles, slow and sweet. “I have faith in you, Iron Man.”

~ * ~

When Pepper leaves him a little while later, it’s with kiss-swollen lips and a problem in his pants.

Coming back to Steve’s situation takes care of that pretty quick.

“JARVIS, where’s Rogers now?”

“In medical, sir.”

“What?!”

“He signed himself in shortly after your conversation in the locker room,” JARVIS explains, and Tony’s heart starts pounding. Steve always, _always_ has to be coaxed into medical. If he’s signed himself in voluntarily, that means something’s bad.

Tony races down, trying his damnedest to ignore the faint wheeze of his breath.

He’s gotten attached to Cap in the last six months.

When he comes flying into medical, Steve is sitting on one of the beds lined up and separated by curtains along the wall. A woman in a lab coat is standing in front of him scribbling on a clipboard. Steve’s shoulders are hunched, and he looks smaller than anyone his size has a right to.

“What’s wrong?” Tony demands. “Is it your head? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Steve’s ears flush. “No, that’s already healed. I keep saying things I don’t mean to.”

That slows Tony a little. “Like what you said earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t mean it?”

“No, I meant it.” Steve bites his lips the minute the words are out, grimacing and hunching further.

Tony’s eyebrows go up. “You literally can’t stop yourself, can you?”

“No,” Steve says and looks desperately over at Tony. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Hey,” Tony says and steps forward, close enough to put a hand on Steve’s arm, “I’m not going to tell anyone. Chill. You’re okay.”

Steve barks out a harsh laugh. “I am the farthest fucking thing from okay.”

Tony only briefly glimpses his stricken expression before Steve buries his face in his hands.

Tony squeezes his arm. “Give us a second, Doc?”

She nods and steps away, and Tony pulls the curtain closed. “Deep breath, Cap, come on.” He keeps coaxing until Steve follows the instruction. “There you go.”

That seems to give Steve enough composure that the sick fear on his face is wiped away by that mulish set of his jaw that precedes Steve really digging his heels in.

“I’ve already seen past the armor, you can drop the act,” Tony says and turns so he’s leaning against the side of the bed, facing away from Steve. Some conversations are easier when you don’t have to look at someone. He can see Steve out of the corner of his eye, and that’ll be enough.

“I can’t,” Steve says. “I shouldn’t do this.”

“Do what? Be human? Admit that time traveling fucked you up a little?”

Steve laughs. Or that’s the best way Tony can describe the noise he makes. It’s strangled. “A little might be an understatement.” Then he pauses and sighs and Tony sees him drop his head into his hands. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah,” Tony murmurs and suddenly feels it himself. He rubs a hand over his face. “Look, I don’t want to do this while you’ re—when you have to, okay? But when we figure this out and get you back to normal, we should talk.”

“I should step down,” Steve says, and Tony can’t help it, he twists around to look at Steve.

“Like hell you should!”

Steve stares at him, wide-eyed.

“Not an option,” Tony repeats firmly. “But you should maybe talk to a therapist. I can give you a few recommendations.”

Now, Tony can feel Steve’s eyes on his back. “You can?”

“You’re not the only one who’s fucked up, Steve. It doesn’t have to be—” He gestures to try and convey the overwhelming, all-consuming hell of it.

Steve stares at his hands, folded white-knuckled in his lap.

“If you’re not ready for that, that’s okay too,” Tony tells him. “Either way, I’ve got your back. That’s what friends are for, right?”

When Steve speaks, his voice is rough. “Will you tell me—about what you...?”

Tony leans back, so they’re back to back and lets his head fall back on Steve’s shoulder. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it, Cap.”

~ * ~

Tony flings the curtain open to wave the doctor in again. “You want me to stay?” he asks Steve unthinkingly.

“Yes,” Steve says instantly. “Please don’t leave me alone.” He looks just as instantly mortified, but Tony pretends he heard nothing and hikes himself up on the bed, flopping back against the pillows.

“Has anyone made you watch Scooby-Doo?” he asks.

Steve’s frown of confusion clears out the embarrassment. “Are you speaking English?”

“God, we’re wasting our time with you,” Tony says and props himself up with one elbow. “Scooby-Doo. It’s a cartoon. Scooby-Doo is the name of a dog.” He sings the first few lines of the song and the look of blind incredulity Steve gives him should be preserved for future generations. Tony keeps singing because the expression just gets funnier the deeper into the song he gets.

“Don’t hold back,” the doctor chimes in and Tony cracks up laughing at the way Steve’s head swivels, his mouth dropping open.

Between tests, they watch a handful of episodes and by the time they get to the fourth one, Steve is humming along, although he stops whenever he catches Tony grinning at him.

“Okay, we think we’ve found something,” the doctor tells them, finally, and Steve sits up, swinging his legs off the bed and turning his whole attention to her. She holds up a picture of the puncture wound from Steve’s neck. “It looks like you were injected with some kind of souped-up version of sodium pentathol.”

“What’s—”

“Truth serum. I mean like, hypothetically; it doesn’t actually really work like that. Not like whatever you got dosed with.” Tony shuts his mouth when Steve gives him a look. “Sorry, you were asking her weren’t you.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, directing it specifically to the doctor, and wow, that is major sass from Captain Spangly-Pants. She bites back a smile.

“You’re welcome. We’re not sure what the compound is, but based on our analysis and the blood samples we’ve looked at, it’s working itself out of your system. You should be back to normal in 24 to 48 hours.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, but he looks conflicted.

Tony gets it. He wants control of his mouth _now_.

Tony claps a hand to his shoulder. “Come on. Come upstairs with me. Thanks, Doc.”

“No problem,” she replies dryly and waves her clipboard as she heads back deeper into the bay.

“Tony, I’m not sure if I want to be around you right now,” Steve says, and Tony flinches despite himself. Ouch. Not about him, but still: ouch.

“That’s not how I mean it,” Steve says miserably.

“I know. I get it. You don’t want to keep spewing secrets at me. But I don’t think you want, or should, be alone right now, okay? We don’t have to talk. Just...” Tony takes a second to gather his thoughts, to put together what he wants to say. He’s not under the influence of truth serum, so it’s hard for him to say, “Before Afghanistan, I drank, and I partied, and I slept around because I was so goddamned numb inside it was the only way I could feel anything. Good, bad, it didn’t matter. It was better than nothing.” He taps the arc reactor. “Now I feel something all the time. This thing. Thrumming. Aching. Cold, hot, heavy. But I had my eyes opened again in New York and Steve, I’m scared. What I saw—” He glances up, and Steve is watching him, listening with sympathy written all over his face. Tony flashes him a weak smile. He can feel sweat on his temples now, his hands itching for tools. “Ask Pepper. I stay up. Days at a time working. Hoping if maybe I work hard enough I can come up with something to protect us, to save us because we are so out of our depth.”

“Tony,” Steve says, voice soft. “That’s not your job.”

Tony waves a hand in a big illustrative circle. “Do you see anyone else stepping up, Steve? Anyone who matches up with me, and I’m not saying that out of pure ego. I know better than that. But if you see anyone, anyone at all, who’s stepping up to prepare us for what I saw in that—”

His voice fails, and he loses control of his breathing, starts hyperventilating, that feeling like he’s been poisoned surging through his system.

“Tony! Tony, it’s okay,” Steve tells him and Tony whimpers. It’s not. They’re so unprepared. They’re out there, waiting, and they’re so, so unprepared.

“Tony,” Steve says firmly—in the Captain America voice. It catches Tony’s attention, and he glances up, realizes he’s holding on to Steve’s wrist so hard it’s white under his fingers. “Tony, breathe. Deep, with me,” Steve says, and he takes a deep breath. He keeps at it, exaggerated breaths until Tony’s following along, however shaky.

It helps, eventually, and the panic dies down to background noise. Tony loosens his grip on Steve. He laughs, and it wavers dangerously. “Told you.”

Steve’s eyes are serious, searching Tony’s. “You never told me that. You never told us what you saw. I didn’t know it shook you up so bad.”

Tony swallows down the rock in his throat. “We are outnumbered and outmatched. And it’s just a matter of time, Steve.”

“Okay,” Steve says, brows furrowing. “I hear you. There’s a threat out there that we’re not ready for. But we can get ready. You don’t have to fight them alone Tony, I’m here. Clint and Natasha, and Bruce and Thor. We’re all here. You saw what we can do.”

“Scrape by with the skin of our teeth?”

Steve smiles crookedly. “Everyone went home. We did it once, and we can do it again. We weren’t ready for New York—imagine what we can do if we’re ready.”

For the first time in a long time, something in Tony settles.

~ * ~

They end up going back to the penthouse. Tony’s surprised to see Pepper sitting at the bar top in the kitchen eating out of a white bowl shaped like a splash.

“Hey, honey,” he says, moving in to kiss her cheek.

Seeing Steve, she covers her mouth and, through a mouthful of pasta, says, “Oh! Steve, hi. It’s good to see you.”

Tony squeezes her waist. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

She glances at him. “It’s after ten. I’m just getting to dinner, and I’m starved.”

“Wow,” Steve says, “no wonder.”

Pepper smiles at him and wipes her mouth with a napkin before waving him forward. “Come here and let me give you a hug, you look like you need one. How are y—”

“Ah,” Tony says and cuts her off with a palm over her mouth. “We’re not asking questions tonight.”

Pepper’s eyebrows go up, but when Tony pulls his hand away she just looks at Steve again and says, “Please? Natasha says you give the best hugs and I could really use one.”

Usually, Tony would make a joke about the fact that he’s standing right there, but Steve’s shoulders are rounded, his hands deep in his pockets and he looks like he’s scoping the place for exits. After an expectant beat from them, he shyly makes his way over. When he’s within arm’s reach, Pepper gets a hold of his arm and reels him in, sighing as she gets her arms around his waist and lays her head on his chest. She’s adorable, and Tony’s smile must reassure Steve because his muscles unwind and he goes loose around her, pulling her more snugly against him like a gorgeous red-headed teddy bear.

“Mm, Natasha was right.”

Steve laughs a little self-consciously. He starts to withdraw, but Pepper just hangs on, and after a second he gets with the program and rejoins the hugging, albeit a little less desperately tight this time.

“Nothing washes off the mess of a lousy day like a good hug,” Pepper sighs.

“It’s...been a long time since somebody hugged me,” Steve admits quietly.

Tony’s heart twists in his chest. “Well, we love hugs around here, so you’re going to have to get used to it,” he says and crowds up against Steve’s back, throwing his arms around so he’s got his hands on Pepper’s waist. “Threeway!”

Both Pepper and Steve laugh at the stupid joke, and Tony can’t help feeling inordinately proud of himself.

Steve tolerates the two of them surrounding him for a little while longer before he starts to fidget uncomfortably and they let him go. “Well, ah, thanks for letting me interrupt your evening, I’ll just—”

“Oh, don’t go,” Pepper protests, spiraling noodles onto her fork. “I’ll go to the bedroom, I’m ready to fall in bed as soon as I’ve eaten anyway.”

“But—”

“Honestly, you’re welcome here any time, Steve.” She scoops up her bowl and hops down from the barstool, putting the pasta in her mouth before waving with the fork. She’s gone before Steve can protest further.

“Let’s have a drink,” Tony proposes in the awkward silence that arrives in her wake.

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve points out ruefully as Tony circles around the bar.

Tony shrugs. “It’s just to give you something to do with your hands. Trust me, everything’s easier that way.”

Hesitantly, Steve eases onto one of the stools across from him. “I’ve noticed you’re careful with your hands.”

Tony nods, pushing one tumbler across the bar to Steve, who immediately curls his hand around it. Tony smiles. “My hands are my tell. I can control everything else but them.” He turns them back and forth, and Steve follows the movement with his eyes.

“That’s why you keep them in your pockets so much.”

With his index finger, Tony taps his nose. “If I’m clenching them or if they’re shaking you can’t tell that way.”

Steve swirls the ice around his glass and shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to do that.”

Tony snorts. “There are a lot of things we shouldn’t have to do.”

The expression on Steve’s face concedes that point. He takes a sip out of the glass. His nose wrinkles briefly, then he says, “Hey, wow. That’s not bad.”

Tony laughs, loud and gleeful, and when he catches sight of Steve’s face again, he’s blushing, shoulders hunched again.

“It’s expensive, huh?”

“You don’t want me to answer that question.”

Steve drinks another mouthful. “No, I probably don’t.”

They talk for a while longer about inane things, then they end up in front of the windows looking down at the city where Steve points and guesses at the locations of things he remembers, describing them for Tony. There are a lot of places he got the shit kicked out of him. Tony laughs despite himself.

“What?” Steve says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “You think it’s funny people wanted to rough me up?”

Tony giggles. “Just—of course you were getting the crap kicked out of you in every back alley in Brooklyn. I should have guessed.”

“It wasn’t only back alleys,” Steve says, and Tony laughs harder.

From there they wander over to the couches where Steve curls up on the floor holding a throw pillow against his chest and looking every bit as young as he actually is. Outside, the clouds clear away a little, and Tony has to ask JARVIS to shutter the windows, so he ends up telling Steve about his nightmares, about the way he wakes up yelling because the wormhole opened up again and swallowed everything.

He finds out Steve wakes up in a cold sweat most mornings, scrambling to figure out what year it is. Then he admits he probably doesn’t sleep as much as he should.

“We make a pair,” Tony says, sprawled out on the floor next to Steve, one knee bent sideways, so it presses into the meat of Steve’s thigh.

Steve laughs, head rolling along the seat cushions of the couch to look at him. “We do, don’t we?”

“Bet Natasha’s more messed up than either of us.”

“No bet,” Steve declares and drinks down the last of the melted ice in his glass, his throat working in one long line.

They’re quiet for a few minutes, and Tony wonders what’s going through Steve’s head. He hopes its better than what was going on in there earlier. He feels better himself, lighter. There’s always been something standing there between the two of them, and it feels like tonight is maybe a step forward into something new.

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve says finally, voice soft. “I— You didn’t have to do this.”

“Don’t get stupid on me, Steve. You know I can count the friends I’ve had in my life on one hand?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve frown and knows it seems like a non-sequitur. Steve doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem to know if he should.

“You’re a good man, Rogers. And I’d like to count you among them.”

At that, Steve’s face goes soft. “Yeah, Tony. I’d like that, too.”

~ * ~

They’ve migrated to the kitchen and are eating sugar cereal with ice cold milk when Pepper emerges dressed for the day but for her shoes, which she has hooked on two fingers of one hand.

“Ooh, I want a bowl,” she says.

Steve closes up a little, ducking his head and focusing on his bowl while Tony retrieves her serving and gets his morning kiss.

“Did you two stay up all night?” she asks when he’s seated beside her.

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says, scratching at his forehead. “Sorry.”

“What? Why? Don’t be sorry, those are the best kinds of conversations.” Pepper reaches over and squeezes his wrist. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t join you. Maybe next time.”

“That would be fantastic,” Tony says and Pepper smiles at him.

Then she looks at Steve. “That is, if you want me to be there.”

Steve glances between them, seeming surprised. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with your schedule.”

Tony and Pepper share a look and laugh. “If I join you it will be because my schedule is already disrupted,” she says with a smile.

“Okay,” Steve says, although he still looks uncertain. Tony’s surprised when he admits, “I don’t sleep that well, so whenever’s good for you.”

Pepper points her spoon at him. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Steve. There are plenty of nights I could use hugs like yours, and I will take you up on that.”

“Captain America never lies,” Steve says gravely.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, spraying Pop-Tart crumbs across the counter, “but Steve Rogers lies like a rug.”

Steve bursts out laughing.

~ * ~

It isn’t even three days before Pepper tells Tony she woke up at 2AM after being doused by JARVIS because she’d gone hot in her sleep and the sheets had started smoking. After cleaning up and regaining some of her composure, she’d asked JARVIS if Steve was up. He had been, of course, because Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Pepper tells Tony she got her hug and then “broke down into a ridiculous mess” and ended up telling Steve all about Killian and Extremis, and how gratifyingly sympathetic and angry Steve had been. Tony is a little jealous because, so sue him, there’s a part of him that wants to be all things to Pepper, but it’s a small part, and he lectures it about how unreasonable and impossible that is until it settles down. It helps that she’s there in front of him giving him a play by play of the entire night—and apparently, it _was_ the entire night because after she ran out of steam, Steve told her about Peggy.

“Wow,” Tony says, and now he’s irrationally jealous of his own girlfriend, “wow, you mean he spoke actual words about Peggy Carter in your presence?”

Pepper nods gravely. “For nearly two hours, actually. I was half afraid to breathe because it might make him stop. God, Tony, he loves her so much.” Her hands tighten on his shoulders and Tony squeezes her back, a little flutter of panic rising in his gut at the thought of losing her. “Natasha keeps pushing him to see people, but I don’t think he’s ready. Not after losing something like that. And she’s still alive. God.”

Tony doesn’t know Peggy well because she and his father had had a falling out sometime early in the 70s, but he knows she founded S.H.I.E.L.D. and that, according to his father, it had been a travesty when she “settled for that other idiot” instead of waiting for him to find Steve. He knows she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and that Steve visits her like clockwork every week. He tries to imagine what that must be like for Steve and can’t.

“He’s going to be a wreck when she passes,” Pepper says. “Do you know it was only just a year last month since he saw her in 1942?”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Tony promises.

Not long after that, Fury moves Steve down to Washington, D.C. Tony complains about it at length, with precisely zero effect.

“It’ll be more efficient for me to work out of the Triskelion,” Steve says.

“It won’t be forever,” Steve says.

“I can be closer to Peggy,” Steve admits quietly.

Tony stops fighting after that.

Steve calls regularly to update them, although it’s not uncommon for his update to be, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it.” The calls almost always come long after normal people would be asleep. He sounds lonely, and Tony and Pepper worry. Once a month or so they make it down to have dinner with Steve, but it’s not enough. He’s sounding the way he used to—like he’s phoning it in because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Then one afternoon Pepper calls Tony and demands, “Turn on the TV.”

Tony does, and stares open-mouthed as three shiny new helicarriers using his tech are systematically blown out of the sky.

“Steve is there,” Pepper tells him and Tony’s blood surges.

“What the hell do you mean he’s there? Why didn’t he call?”

“I don’t know, but—”

She gasps, and Tony’s heart drops. On screen, they’re replaying a shaky video of two figures falling from the last airborne helicarrier. Helpfully, someone circles the big white star on the chest of one figure. The video plays again with the red circle following the figure all the way down to the water, where it vanishes.

“Oh god,” Pepper breathes.

It’s too late, and he’s too far away, but all Tony can think is _I have to get there_. He throws himself into a suit and tells Pepper not to wait up, that he’ll send news the second he has it, and then he’s off, rocketing toward D.C.

He makes it in an hour and then isn’t even sure where to start. Networks are arguing about whether or not Steve is a traitor to his country and it’s chaos on the ground with every first-responder and military higher-up in a hundred-mile radius swarming the place. It takes a little while, but he uncovers that Steve was found on the shore of the Potomac and has been transferred to Walter Reed. JARVIS hacks their records, and Tony learns they’re in the process of digging bullets out of him in surgery.

Tony’s standing in the lobby of the hospital at a complete loss when a black guy with a gap-toothed smile says to him, “I bet I know who you’re here for.”

“You know Steve?” Tony demands.

The man huffs. “We met three days ago, and he turned my life upside down.”

Tony smiles weakly. “Special skill of his, huh?”

There isn’t much to do while they wait, so they get to talking, and Tony finds out Sam was part of the EXO-7 program. He’s smart and cool-headed, and Tony can see immediately why Steve trusted him.

It scares him when they finally get to see Steve, and it’s clear he was beaten to hell and back. They’ve been in half a dozen skirmishes together at this point, and he’s never seen Steve come back looking like that.

When Steve wakes up, he breathes, “Tony,” and then, “It was him, Tony. Bucky’s alive.”

Bucky.

Bucky the guy Steve wakes up screaming himself hoarse for, reaching out. Bucky, Steve’s boyhood friend. _Bucky_.

Something changed between Steve and Natasha while they were collapsing S.H.I.E.L.D. together and it takes Tony a little while to put his finger on it, but he realizes finally that Steve has opened up with her. He told her about Bucky, he’s keeping her in the loop the way Tony keeps Bruce in the loop, and it hits Tony like a tidal wave: slowly, but surely, they’re coming together. The little band of misfits is closing ranks.

It might be time to dust off those floorplans back at the Tower.

Natasha is the one who digs up the information Steve needs to find Bucky, and Sam is the one who goes with him when they finally get a solid lead, but it’s Tony Steve declares home base, who he reports back to.

Early in the search, Steve comes to Tony in the workshop with a file in his hands, agonized eyes, and hunched shoulders.

“There’s something you need to know, Tony. And. If you don’t want to be part of this anymore after, I’ll understand.”

Tony doesn’t know what to expect when he takes the folder, but he winces when he opens it and sees his parents faces. It’s the article from the New York Times covering their deaths.

Steve is quiet while he reads.

When he’s finished, Tony closes the folder and puts it aside on the table. “So your best friend killed my parents.”

Grimacing, Steve says, “He was brainwashed. You’ve seen—”

Tony stares hard at him. “Yeah, I’ve seen. I’ve seen, I’ve read, I’ve been through every file there is on James Buchanan Barnes and The Winter Soldier. I knew, Steve. I know he killed them and I know it wasn’t really his doing.”

Steve swallows, twisting his fingers together. He looks miserable. “Oh. I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t,” Tony says and reaches out to put his hand on Steve’s arm, squeezes gently. “Just don’t, okay? It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Bucky’s fault. I’m not gonna make myself sick being pissed off at some guy who had no choice in what he was doing, okay? I’m pissed at Hydra. And the best revenge I can think of is to take their enforcer back and turn him against them. So don’t.” He pauses, mouth flickering up in a smile. “It took guts to come down here and tell me though. And it means a lot that you’d do that.”

Steve turns his hand over under Tony’s and grips Tony’s wrist, his expression urgent. “Tony, you’re one of my best friends. It wouldn’t be right to lie to you like that, to let you help me, not knowing—“

“Hey, my hands aren’t exactly clean either. So we’re good. Thank you though.”

Steve smiles weakly and wipes away the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Steve Rogers needs to be more like Captain America. No secrets. No lies.”

Tony takes his hand and squeezes it. “At ease, soldier. I’d say you’re doing a damn good job.”

~ * ~

They raid a base in Sokovia.

Clint is hurt, and for a little while, they’re afraid he’s not going to make it back.

Every time they go out, it gets harder. Once upon a time, Tony told Steve he wasn’t a team player, but as the years have gone by it’s blatantly obvious that’s untrue. The Avengers call him _mom_ for god’s sake.

Tony is the one who fixes their gear, who makes sure they’re protected, who gives them the most cutting-edge weaponry, who makes himself sick with guilt and anxiety when they’re hurt and who does his damnedest to make sure it never happens again. He’s the one who makes sure they’re fed and housed and seeing their therapists.

That’s why he builds the net in the first place. He wants to make it so they don’t have to fight, so they can stay home and never worry again whether or not Clint is going to bleed out in the Quinjet on the way home.

The analysis of Loki’s scepter, recovered from said base in Sokovia returns results that indicate the glowing blue rock houses an entire artificial intelligence. The kind of artificial intelligence Tony’s net needs to work. It’s just a matter of installation, and they’ll all be safe. No more fighting, no more injuries, no more wondering who’s going to make it home...

“I’ve gotta run this by Steve,” he tells Bruce and Bruce nods.

“That’s a good idea.” He yawns. “I’m going to turn in for the night.”

“When he agrees, you’re my wet-works guy!” Tony yells after him. Bruce waves a dismissive hand and disappears down the stairs.

~ * ~

Steve does not agree.

“Tony, no. This is insane, people will never agree to this.” He looks shocked, like what Tony’s proposing is genuinely outrageous. Steve is not a stupid man; Tony doesn’t get it.

“No one has to agree to it, Steve, that’s the beauty of creating a _private_ safety net around the globe.”

Steve’s eyebrows crawl up his forehead. Tony hates his eyebrows. “And you don’t see the issue with that.”

“What part of ‘safety!’ are you not understanding?”

“The part where someone has to tell this thing what to point and shoot at, Tony! The part where you’d be keeping a secret from the population of the entire globe! We went through this in 2013 in Washington, D.C., remember?”

It turns into a massive fight.

Tony is incensed by the implication that what he’s trying to do bears any resemblance to Hydra’s attempt to wipe out anyone who might chafe under their thumb. “I’m trying to protect people, not kill them!” he shouts and only bristles further at the condescending look Steve throws him.

“Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time.”

“Don’t you get it?” Tony demands. “There is an entire army out there whose sole purpose in life is to wipe us off the map, Steve. And _we are not ready_. We don’t have the capability to fight an army with that kind of technology. Compared to what I saw, what I’m doing is playing with sticks and rocks. This is our only choice if we even have a hope of fighting them off!”

“Not like this, Tony. You’re scared, and you’re not thinking clearly.”

“You’re damn right I’m scared! Does anybody remember when I put a missile through a portal, in New York City? We were standing right under it. We’re the Avengers, we can bust weapons dealers the whole doo-da-day, but how do we cope with something like that?”

Steve’s jaw tenses. “Together.”

“We’ll lose.”

“Maybe,” Steve admits. “But we’re going to do our damnedest to stop that from happening.” He waves a hand around at the rest of the Avengers, standing tense around the room. “You’re not in this alone, remember? It’s not on you to save us. We’ll figure something out. Something else.”

Tony feels his chin tremble, a lump hardening in his throat. “I can’t…I can’t lose you guys. And I’m not… I’m not enough. Clint almost died—”

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” Clint points out. “And if I had, it wouldn’t be your fault. I know what I’m in this for. I know the risks.”

Tony scrubs at his forehead. “You know that doesn’t make me feel better.”

Clint sighs. “I know, but it’s something you’ve gotta accept. We’re all human—well, not Thor, but he can die, too—and mortality’s a thing. We’re in a dangerous job, yeah, but trying to end it the way you want to is only going to make things worse. And if you were thinking straight, you’d know that.”

“We’re all scared, Tony,” Steve says, voice softening. “I’ve spent my whole life fighting. I’m scared there’s nothing else out there for me but the fight.”

“You know that’s not true,” Tony protests.

Steve smiles weakly. “Sometimes. You know how it is.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I get it. I won’t put the AI in the safety net.”

Against his instincts, Tony capitulates. He hopes Steve is right.

~ * ~

As time goes on, more and more supers start crawling out of the woodworks. Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Stephen Strange, a group of total nutjobs from space who call themselves the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ who apparently saved them all from total destruction not long after Bucky showed up—that really puts things in perspective. At any given moment there are things happening in the universe that could destroy them, and they’d never even know.

It makes Tony feel so incredibly small.

On the other hand, there are people out there other than himself, other than the Avengers even, who are trying to stop said destruction and so far their average is pretty good. They’re still here.

Some days are harder than others, but they do the best they can to take it one day at a time, one crisis at a time. In between, he and Pepper take Steve to dinner. The Avengers are with Steve when Peggy passes, and they’re there when he starts to heal and move on. He stops looking back and starts looking forward, and Tony is the one who helps direct his gaze.

They stand shoulder to shoulder against the worst the universe can throw at them and, incredibly, it’s enough.

Together, they’re enough.


End file.
